The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Rocky21]

You know I kinda wish John Wall would learn to finish at the basket better.

[No Excuses]

Here's my thing with McGee and has always been my thing: If your parents are pro basketball players and you're 24 years old and STILL don't get it

This is where I, and a few others disagree.

Javale gets it. He came into the season in good shape and he clearly worked on his game. He has improved each and every season he's been in the league.

When he was drafted, everyone knew he was raw. He was supposed to take this long to develop. And he was developing just fine.

Again, everyone focused on the bad. How many talked about the good things he did? Let's not pretend that there was nothing good to his game. That is complete bull****.

Edited March 27, 2012 by No Excuses

[Destino]

He is by no means a "productive NBA center" - he's so bad defensively and is a non-factor offensively (oh wow he scores somewhat okay on a team with no offensive options outside Wall, hurray!), and even though he played well against Noah and the Bulls, before that his team gave up 115 points to the Detroit Pistons.

By this logic his scoring production must have dropped now that he's on the Nuggets and everyone on that team can score. So then why has he averaged 12.25ppg at .622 shooting?

Also Vishal's argument is on full display with you 115 to the Pistons comment. Ignore the fact that McGee hit the game winning shot and that Ben Gordon (a guard) scored 41 points... clearly it was McGee that gave up 115. He should have been all over Gordon preventing him from going 9/9 from behind the arc.

BTW - what was the name of the latest random forgotten guard that killed the Wizards in the 4th qtr? I forget because there have been so many this season that they all just blend together. Nene should have really done something about that.

---------- Post added March-27th-2012 at 11:11 AM ----------

You know I kinda wish John Wall would learn to finish at the basket better.

Shhh... we're trying to avoid the elephant in the room.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Destino

[StillUnknown]

We weren't going anywhere with Arenas/Jamison/Butler and we weren't going anywhere with McGee and Young. Simple as that

Ernie constructed both rosters

His eventual extension will bring much sadness.

I'm almost to the point of rooting for blowout losses just so there can be no reason for Ted to want to bring him back.

[SuperBash]

Ernie constructed both rosters

His eventual extension will bring much sadness.

I'm almost to the point of rooting for blowout losses just so there can be no reason for Ted to want to bring him back.

Ernie does need to be gone, number 1 priority of the offseason to me.

Edited March 27, 2012 by SuperBash

[Destino]

Ernie constructed both rosters

His eventual extension will bring much sadness.

I'm almost to the point of rooting for blowout losses just so there can be no reason for Ted to want to bring him back.

If he gets an extension I'll enter fan card territory. I have been a hometown sports fan for a long time but I have zero faith that this clown will ever result in player improvement. No player that comes here gets better because this team has no accountability and that starts with the GM. If he's extended I have no reason to believe John Wall spends the summer learning to shoot and finish. No reason to believe Vesely will learn to shoot at all. No reason to believe this team will start signing players without massive holes in their overall games.

The other night while Wittman was furiously drawing on his dry erase board Wall and Crawford were ignoring him and laughing about something else. Meanwhile we all knew that the Pistons, not exactly a good team, were going to be the latest team to find a way to come back and steal one. That to me is the Grunfeld culture. We saw it through Arenas' time here and we still see it now. Players just don't act like professionals here.

This is what Vishal was talking about IMO about scapegoats. We blame Arenas for the culture. We blame coaches for failing. Meanwhile IMO the culture comes from the GM that insists out of shape players get on the court. The GM that refuses to allow his coaches to discipline certain players. We are all lead to believe other individuals are to blame for the systematic failures of the franchise and focus on the symptoms of that failure. Who is next? Crawford maybe? At some point people need to realize that this whack-a-mole game is never going to end.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Destino

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

This is where I, and a few others disagree.

Javale gets it. He came into the season in good shape and he clearly worked on his game. He has improved each and every season he's been in the league.

When he was drafted, everyone knew he was raw. He was supposed to take this long to develop. And he was developing just fine.

Again, everyone focused on the bad. How many talked about the good things he did? Let's not pretend that there was nothing good to his game. That is complete bull****.

That's the thing to me. He put in work and he's still a clown. It's a pattern. Grew up with pro basketball parents: clown. Got older: clown. Put in work: clown. You can't fix dumb.

[CrypticVillain]

Man, GACs is killing McGee. Some very harsh words my friend.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Man, GACs is killing McGee. Some very harsh words my friend.

Honestly, I kinda feel uncomfortable talking about another man like that. Pro basketball player or not. He doesn't seem like a bay guy. He's not a lazy ***** like Blatche who's just throwing away an opportunity we wish we could all have. It's not his fault. But he is what he is. That's all there is to it.

[Skin'emAlive]

You dont need to fix "dumb". You just minimize it. This is done by bringing in other talented players who either

A: enhance his skillset

B: offset his deficiencies

C: replace him as a primary scoring/defensive option

This is what a good team/coach/organization does. This is how dumb players like desean stevenson and ron artest have had success. But its ok... now we have "smart" players who know how to lose night in and night out. I feel so much better now.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Couple of things:

There's a difference between dumb dumb and basketball dumb (though I think McGee is prob both). I've seen nothing that shows D Steezy or Artest are basketball dumb. And Nene is certainly not dumb in anyway.

And how the hell do you minimize the defensive presence of your only 7 footer on the floor?

[CrypticVillain]

If the main reason the Wizards traded McGee is because they gave up on him, I can't accept that.

If they traded him because he was going to ask for too much money in the off-season and they wanted to get something for him, I guess I can live with that.

I just hope that McGee doesn't start to "click" and start crushing bammas, because if he does, I will be sick. :puke:

[Destino]

There's a difference between dumb dumb and basketball dumb (though I think McGee is prob both). I've seen nothing that shows D Steezy or Artest are basketball dumb. And Nene is certainly not dumb in anyway.

Both of them get upset and start giving up bad fouls and making mistakes. Artest sometimes gets into a weird mode where he starts jacking up shots but it's not common.

And how the hell do you minimize the defensive presence of your only 7 footer on the floor?

The same way they've done with Seraphin. Instead of having him roll off his man to help defend the rim, have him stay on his defensive assignment and live with your perimeter defenders allowing players to attack the rim.

or actually play TEAM defense... The pick and roll defense has been the problem that most have latched onto but the greater issue with this team has been switching on defense in general, not just in the pick and roll. This is why we have so many wide open shooters and easy dunks by the basket. Watch closely and you'll see that when one of the perimeter players gets beat off the dribble they don't know where to go and often go no where. Watch the better defensive teams play and you'll see that if someone gets beat they run immediately to cover someone else as the defense moves to help. You don't see them standing there with a disgusted look on their faces because a team mate was unable to bail them out.

The positive about the McGee trade is two things:

1 - Nene is better than McGee right now. He's just a better basketball player all around at this point in his career.

2 - He's a veteran on a team that sorely needed one.

The question is really will this trade be better for the Wizards in three years.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Destino

[Going Commando]

That's the thing to me. He put in work and he's still a clown. It's a pattern. Grew up with pro basketball parents: clown. Got older: clown. Put in work: clown. You can't fix dumb.

He's immature and didn't take his position here seriously. He's absolutely not what's best for this team. I'm not even sure if it was that he was stupid in an Xs and Os sense. I think he just didn't care enough to focus like a professional should. He was unmotivated to put in the work to be able to carry a bad team night in and night out with high quality individual play.

You can say the exact same thing about Nick Young. You can't win with players like that as your team leaders, playing prominent roles on the court.

McGee was never going to turn the lightswitch on here, maybe he does somewhere else with strong veteran leadership to bring him in hand, but it was never happening here. He was the veteran leadership for us... hence why we were terrible and couldn't improve. The only hope for keeping him and having him turn the corner was if we somehow minimized his role by surrounding him with several good players. That wasn't going to happen.

McGee did not make his teammates better, and was probably making them worse. I can't accept that it's coincindence that as soon as he leaves, the rest of the front court looks much better--even before Nene got here. Then Nene gets here and we see the effect of what having a strong positional defender, good passer out of the post, an offensive threat that commands a double team, and someone who can consistently score on ISO post ups + make his free throws and magically Kevin Seraphin and Trevor Booker look like quality young NBA front court players and Chris Singleton starts to come out of his shell. JaVale could not do any of those things. He was simply a limited limited player, more valuable to some other team with a better front court situation than to us.

We flipped JaVale for a much better center who is better for this team in 8 out of 10 basketball and personality ways. And we got rid of NY in the process. It was a good trade.

---------- Post added March-27th-2012 at 01:34 PM ----------

The John Wall Era was most definitely stuck in neutral pretrade.

Winning early matters for young star PGs. Westbrook, Paul, Rose, they all won big in their first three seasons.

Wall's record here is getting comically bad, and we weren't improving.

If we wanted Wall to progress into the player we all hope he will become, then we had to make a big change on the roster. We needed an immediate upgrade in the quality of his supporting cast. We needed to upgrade two of the three players most responsible for the clownish, national laughingstock atmosphere of this team so we could be taken seriously as a real NBA club. The quality of the basketball on the court needed to drastically improve.

It has.

I don't care if Nene is playing 30 games a season in year four of his contract and JaVale is an All Star if Wall makes the leap and the Wizards legitimately make strides. JaVale was never going to get to that level here. Hell, JaVale was probably going to walk this offseason for nothing anyway. A serious culture change was needed. Without it, I doubt Wall ever thrives while here.

[Destino]

Steve there is a glaring problem with the Wall logic. Star point guards, and superstars in general, make their teams better simply by being on the court. There is nothing that concerns me more about John Wall than the talk about players making him worse and hurting his development. This isn't the NFL, in the NBA stars improve their teams, they do not need their teams to improve them. Good role players certainly are team and system dependent however.

Can you name a star that didn't shine on a bad team?

Cleveland picks up Kyrie Irving and has improved from a .232 winning percentage to .370. The Wizards on the other hand with Wall have gone from .280 in Walls first year to .224 this season. Twan is averaging 18ppg at a horrible .412 shooting percentage and Wizards castoff Alonzo Gee is starting at SF.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Destino

[Going Commando]

Steve there is a glaring problem with the Wall logic. Star point guards, and superstars in general, make their teams better simply by being on the court. There is nothing that concerns me more about John Wall than the talk about players making him worse and hurting his development. This isn't the NFL, in the NBA stars improve their teams, they do not need their teams to improve them. Good role players certainly are team and system dependent however.

Can you name a star that didn't shine on a bad team?

Cleveland picks up Kyrie Irving and has improved from a .232 winning percentage to .370. The Wizards on the other hand with Wall have gone from .280 in Walls first year to .224 this season. Twan is averaging 18ppg at a horrible .412 shooting percentage and Wizards castoff Alonzo Gee is starting at SF.

I don't see how you can play PG well with crap play from the people around you. You need them to be where they are supposed to be. You need them to make plays to make you look good. I don't agree that a star player can just elevate a team on his own. Especially not a PG whose primary job is passing.

I also don't think Cleveland's record nor play this year is appreciably different than last year's. Their team is better, and Irving is a part of that, but the NBA as a whole is also worse. I don't think his rookie season is better than Wall's was last year, not by pure PG standards. Nor do I think he's actually elevated his team a great deal, if anything, I think they're regressing to the mean after the unusual circumstances surrounding last year's team. His role is also markedly different from Wall's, he's not a true pass first PG. He looks good because he can shoot, and he's got other shooters on his team that space the floor enough for him to be able to do what he does.

[No Excuses]

It's almost comical how much some of you diminish other players worth/capability and then at the same time make all the excuses in the world for Wall.

[Going Commando]

I've been pretty bald in both my criticism and praise for Wall. I've got no strong agenda with him. I honestly think he can be great, but I'm not blind to his flaws. Whether you realize it or not Vishal, you have a hatred for Ernie Grunfeld that drives you to criticize or support whatever player suits your bottom line hatred for EG at the time.

[SuperBash]

Hell yeah, we are brining Cartier Martin back!

Edited March 27, 2012 by SuperBash

[NotSoSuper]

Hell yeah, we are brining Cartier Martin back!

What is the hype with this guy?

[SuperBash]

What is the hype with this guy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm4EUtWELhk

The man can step up in the 4th!

[No Excuses]

I've been pretty bald in both my criticism and praise for Wall. I've got no strong agenda with him. I honestly think he can be great, but I'm not blind to his flaws. Whether you realize it or not Vishal, you have a hatred for Ernie Grunfeld that drives you to criticize or support whatever player suits your bottom line hatred for EG at the time.

I criticize whoever I feel deserves it. I've criticized every single player on this team, including McGee and Young.

I can't say the same for some of you though, (and this is nothing personal btw, I don't want to come across as a dick). I personally find a pattern where people selectively hold some players to a much higher regard than others, when this shouldn't be happening.

[MonkFan8]

You don't need a crystal ball to understand that years and years of crap management has put us in this situation.

Way to completely ignore the rest of the post.

Your posts are so tired and completely not representative of what's going on with the team. You never even argue peoples points. Instead you rely on platitudes that, as far as I can tell, rarely apply to anyone on the board.

Edited March 28, 2012 by MonkFan8

[No Excuses]

Your posts are so tired and completely not representative of what's going on with the team.

This team is 1-4 since the trade. Now the 2nd worst team in the league.

Moral victories are for losers.

[Destino]

It all depends on what you mean by pure point guard. To me that's Chris Paul / Steve Nash and Wall isn't anything like them. They have the handles to weave around and linger in traffic demanding attention before either passing or shooting from anywhere on the court. Wall doesn't seem to have great ball control or the ability to function in traffic, he starts on the perimeter and charges in... That's his move. Nash and Paul go under the basket weave back out and around all while keeping their dribble alive.

Walls movement is like Wesbrooks but with far less physicality at the rim but better passing and vision. They are both players that lean forward and fly but get in trouble when slowed before getting to the rim.

What's hurting him is the culture of no accountability here. Why not play charity ball when you can't shoot? Practice free throws and add some new moves? I doubt anyone on the team even suggests that running into triple teams on solo fast breaks isn't a great idea. It took a coach with nothing to lose to bench Blatche for lack of conditioning. It's not a coincidence that Arenas and others were playing with guns in the locker room and celebrating it on the court. That's how things work here.

Edited March 28, 2012 by Destino